


Daddy's Home

by Ifyouthknew



Series: Earth's Rambunctious Children [3]
Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Angst, Concerned Parents, Established Relationship, Humor, Lassie Gives the Wrong Vibe, M/M, Misunderstandings, Old Married Couple, Romance, Too Often, Yes again, and Soon-to-Be Parents, not that old
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:29:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28998294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ifyouthknew/pseuds/Ifyouthknew
Summary: Another pillow talk has gone wrong and turns into doom and gloom. Lassiter wants something soon. Shawn is locked inside a room? Henry is summoned by whom? Someone says womb?I'm just a buffoon.
Relationships: Carlton Lassiter/Shawn Spencer
Series: Earth's Rambunctious Children [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2109414
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	Daddy's Home

“Shawn, could you turn the TV off? I need to talk to you,” Lassiter said, watching his husband intently who in turn had his eyes trained on _WWE Raw_ while half-lying on the bed, a phone glued to his ear.

Shawn ignored him and continued talking to the other end of the line.

Marriage life serves me right, Lassiter thought bitterly.

“Spencer, hang up right now or I swear to god you won’t see your prickly fruits in our fridge for a whole month and I’ll lock you in this room and have my way with you until you beg for my mercy!” Lassiter growled. The sparrow on a tree branch outside of their window flapped its wings to escape the doomed drama.

It hooked Shawn’s attention. He turned his head, stared at Lassiter wide-eyed, stuttered into the phone in a haste, “Yeah, it’s Lassie. No, no, no, no, he didn’t mean it, I promise. We’re all good.”

Lassiter yanked his phone away, not caring when Shawn put a finger before his mouth telling him to shush. “I mean it, Guster!” Lassiter barked. “If you two do this one more—oh…Mr. Spencer…Mrs. Spencer…I, um…”

In the next gruesome twenty minutes when Lassiter was kept on the phone, sitting on the edge of the bed and crouching over, apologizing, agreeing, then apologizing again, Shawn had located a bag of Cheetos and continued fantasizing about the wrestlers, or to be more specifically, him being one of the wrestlers.

Hanging up and slipping himself back under the cover, Lassiter sighed. “Well, I talked your dad out of charging in here right now, but your mom insisted on doing a psych eval on me first thing in the morning. What’s she doing here anyway? You didn’t tell me she’s back in town.”

“We were just talking about it before you snatched my phone. Being the responsible husband per your request, I’ll give you a heads-up now—she’s here. The four of us are getting together this weekend for dinner.”

“Change of plan: It’s tomorrow, not weekend anymore.”

Shawn let out a laugh. “Good luck. It looks like you’ll be on their bad side for once finally. The downfall of the perfect son-in-law. The real son rises again from ashes like a phoenix.”

Lassiter grunted into his pillow, pounding his fists against the mattress.

At the sight of this, Shawn packed up his smile and put it neatly back under the cover. “It won’t be that bad. They know you were messing with me.”

“Your dad just told me if he ever finds out I’m mistreating you in any way, he’ll see to it that I sign our divorce paper with my toes because both of my arms will be broken then severed and that my new career gets destroyed by every tabloid he can find.”

“Emphasis on ‘ever finds out,’” Shawn quipped.

Tossing and turning on the mattress, Lassiter made another long whine.

“What was it anyway?” Shawn tried to change the subject. “You normally would ask me politely at least twice before getting so worked up. And only one of your empty threats scared me a little. What’s going on with you?”

“I have something I need to get out of my chest. It’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time.”

Shawn licked his barbecue-flavored fingers, then under the glare of Lassiter, wiped his fingers clean with tissues and turned off the TV.

“No. The moment’s passed,” Lassiter grumbled disappointedly after a moment of hesitation. “It can wait.”

“You can’t dangle a man like that!” Shawn protested. “Out with it. You have my full attention right here. My brain is yours.”

Lassiter licked his dry lips then banged his head on the headboard.

“Hey, hey.” Shawn stopped him with a hand cushioning the back of his head. “You can tell me anything anytime. You know I’m never picky. You told me you were promoted to Chief when I was on the toilet, and it didn’t affect my flow at all.”

“Shawn…” After some considering, Lassiter swallowed thickly. “I want to have a baby.”

Shawn tilted his head. “Come again?”

Lassiter was sure Shawn had heard him correctly. He knew this wouldn’t go well but he didn’t plan to turn back now. His only choice was to soldier on. “I want to have a baby,” he repeated slowly.

“I am aware of that,” Shawn said with the same slow pace as his husband. “We discussed this long ago. So what’s—oh…” The realization dawned on him finally like a firecracker exploded near him then caught his pants on fire. But it wasn’t a firecracker, he knew. It was a timed bomb, tick, tick, tick, that he had stashed in a corner and turned a blind eye to. “You mean right now. You want to have a kid now. Is—is that what you mean?”

“Not necessarily right now. But preferably right now. I can live with within a year.”

Shawn stiffened on his side of the bed. The only sign of him being alive was the ups and downs of his chest.

“Shawn, try not to freak out. Think about your happy place. Try an ice cream truck.”

Snapping himself out of the daze, Shawn leered at Lassiter with a lopsided grin, which creeped him out slightly. He backed away a few inches.

“I’ll put a baby in you right now, Carly.” After saying that, Shawn threw his leg over Lassiter then sprawled on top of him.

“Wait, you agree?” Lassiter beamed when Shawn bent down and nibbled his neck.

“Shh, shh. No talking during baby-making.” Shawn kissed him on the lips passionately, thrusting his tongue inside his mouth all the while making exaggerated pornographic noises.

That was when Lassiter realized Shawn was trying to distract him and shut him up by sexing him up.

“Shawn!” Lassiter threw him off his body onto the mattress.

“Fine. You can put a baby in me.” Shawn slapped his own ass like it were a thick mound of ripe dough, waiting to be kneaded then put into the oven.

“I need you to be serious here. You told me you were down for it before we got married. So what’s the problem? We’re not getting any younger. I’m turning forty-seven next year. Think about it. When our kid graduates from college, I’ll be at least seventy. The math is terrifying. And we haven’t discussed even one bit about the baby thing. Do we adopt? Do we find a surrogacy agency—”

“Or do we just ask Jules for a favor?”

Lassiter’s face contorted in shock, his crow’s feet deepening. “What?”

“Nothing. Kidding,” Shawn retracted in a hurry. _Oh god, am I the only one thinking about a threesome sometimes? I hate revelation!_ “Never do the age math unless you’re purposefully seeking anxiety and depression. And speak for yourself, you old wrinkly moistureless man. I’m getting younger every day. You see this pimple right here?” Shawn pointed a red spot above his eyebrow. “That’s the sign of my ever-lasting youth.”

“That’s the sign of you eating too much chocolate yesterday!” Lassiter snarled.

“You see! I still feed on chocolate. How dare you say I’m not still young.”

“Give me a break, Shawn. If you expect me to wait for you to be ready to be a father, I’ll never get a kid.”

“I will. Someday,” Shawn mumbled, shifting his gaze to the seam of their duvet cover.

Wrapping an arm around Shawn’s middle, Lassiter leaned close. He spoke gently but at the same time, his words were standing tall as a commander who believed they were indisputable, “I need to be a dad. I can’t wait any longer. I won’t look back one day when I’m too old to ambulate and regret I never got to have a complete family. I don’t think I could stop myself from blaming you if that day comes.”

“But would you even try?”

Silence enveloped the two of them as they stared at the ceiling fan and willed it to move and cool down the room that had suddenly turned hot and stuffy.

Surprisingly, it was Lassiter who broke the tension first. “Are you still in the mood for some _baby-making_?” He wiggled his eyebrows. “I can put loads of babies in you right now, and you don’t have to worry about the next eighteen years.”

Without answering verbally, Shawn turned his back to him and stacked his left arm under his pillow.

Lassiter propped up on his elbow and peered over the cold shoulder. He pinched Shawn’s cheek hard. “This big baby’s upset.”

Shawn slapped his hand away and turned his face further away from Lassiter. He hugged his pillow tighter.

“Oh, come on,” Lassiter complained. “Are you—are you crying? For real?” He shoved Shawn’s shoulder back to the mattress. But his face was still buried in the pillow in a weird and what must have been a painful angle.

Lassiter kicked Shawn’s lower legs and laughed. He did not feel like laughing. But this was the only way to prevent himself from getting sick as the memory of his previous divorce surged onto the shore. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting? I’m just asking for a kid you actually promised in the past you’d be okay with.”

Snapping his head up, Shawn jumped off the bed. He pulled the cover off Lassiter then rolled it up in his arms, leaving him lying there in his boxers only. “I’m sorry I can’t just pop one out for you on demand, Lassie! You didn’t sign up for the premium,” Shawn fumed. “Even if you did, you wouldn’t get one, because I’m just scamming for your money.”

Lassiter chuckled in confusion. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You are not asking for a kid. You’re demanding one! I can hear what you can’t say but desperately want to say: I’ll choose to have a kid in my life over you anytime. I get it, Lassie, I’m dispensable. I apologize for getting in the way of your lifelong dream.” He snatched his pillow then piled it above the heap of the duvet he was already hugging. “Why don’t you have a little me time with your hand tonight and have a bunch of children with him? I bet it would be super-efficient with him being so compliant and crafty. And more importantly, you don’t need to ask for his permission or wait just a little, little, _little_ bit longer for him to get ready.”

As soon as he had finished, Shawn stormed into the guest room and locked the door.

Lassiter got onto his feet. Forgoing slippers, he shuffled out of his bedroom to bring his husband back. “Shawn, open the door. You’re the one who told me we can’t go to bed angry.”

“I’ll do whatever I want!”

“Do you want to order some food for a late-night snack? Or I can make something if you like.”

The growl of his stomach was unignorable even through a closed door. After a beat, Shawn answered stubbornly, “I want you to leave me alone.”

Lassiter sighed and headed back alone.

“Wait,” Shawn said hurriedly when he heard the footsteps walking away from him. “I forgot my phone. Could you please bring me my phone? I mean—bring me my phone, god damn it!”

The phone screen was on when Lassiter reached for it. The notification said there were two missed phone calls from **Dad**. When he picked it up from the nightstand, it sang and vibrated again. The chilling memory of Henry threatening him not long ago hit him hard. In a panic, he pressed the ignore button. And again in the hallway. And again in front of the guest room.

Lassiter had no intention of keeping this hot potato in his hand any longer, but he still shouted, “You need to get out to get it.”

“Leave it on the floor.”

“Or I can just hand it to you after you’ve opened the door. By the way, your dad called.”

“Just ignore him. I’m not opening the door! You’ll push inside!”

“It’s your call.”

The knock on the front door interrupted their exchange that was destined to become repetitive. So Lassiter went downstairs and left Shawn hanging in there alone to wear out his stubbornness and work out his tantrum. “I’m leaving now and I’m taking your phone with me.” He left those words behind.

“I would be calling the police now, you phonenapper!” Shawn barked and banged the guest room door harder. “If I had a phone with me!”

Lassiter padded to the front door and pulled it open without peeping through the peephole first, which only in retrospect did he realize was a grave mistake resulting from frustration, and by extension, negligence, he found Henry standing in his doorway, suspicion painted all over him.

The scene Henry saw was Lassiter in nothing but his boxers, holding a phone with the Psych phone case Shawn tried to give him as a faux-gift, while his son’s desperate shouts poured down from upstairs along with loud poundings.

“Give me my phone! I want my phone!”

Henry stated coldly, glaring at Lassiter. “ _You_ ignored all my calls.”

“Um…” Lassiter’s mind was wiped blank. He had faced hardened criminals among which a handful of them would kill without blinking, but Henry always made him shudder from his core. Honestly, at this point, if he were Henry, he probably would have arrested himself now without a question asked.

“I want my phone!” Shawn feigned a long whiney cry, not helping Lassiter’s case. Then again, he didn’t know his dad had already arrived at his place for a surprise inspection. “You phonenapper! You can’t do this just because I wouldn’t let you put your baby juice inside of me!”

Henry pushed the front door shut quietly, in a manner Lassiter thought was slow and methodical, but the house shook in fear nonetheless.

“I can explain,” Lassiter said, his voice raw and rusty. He took a step back involuntarily.

Henry remained in his spot, arms crossed in front of him, every muscle on his face was kneaded tight.

“Oh, you do want me to explain.” Lassiter pointed at himself in surprise as he realized Henry was waiting. He should choose his words carefully. “Henry—Mr. Spencer, there’s really no need for the trouble. We were just having a small quarrel.”

“Is. My. Son. _Locked_. Inside that room,” Henry ground each word out through clenched teeth.

“No, no, no, no, no…” Lassiter waved his arms before him then laughed too loud at this wild but not baseless accusation. “Technically that is true. _But_ , _but_ —”

“You heartless monster!” Shawn accused. “Do you really expect me to spend a whole night here without any electronic device?!”

Henry invaded the living room one step at a time, calculating, like a lion cornering his prey. He retrieved a gun from the second drawer in the kitchen island.

“How do you know where it is?” Lassiter asked then realized quickly these wouldn’t have been the best last words for him. He grabbed at the last straw. “You don’t have to come all the way—he told me to ignore your calls! He! Your son!”

Upstairs in the guest room, it hit Shawn that it was 2016 and technology was everyone’s savior. To piss Lassiter off to the most extent, Shawn yelled, pronouncing as clearly as possible, “Hey, Siri, call _Dad_.”

The phone in Lassiter’s hand chimed.

“Calling _Dad_ ,” Siri said softly as if that way, she could prevent a disaster from crumbling down.

Lassiter gaped as Henry’s ringtone filled the deadly silent living room. Scowling at his son-in-law, Henry answered the phone and brought it to his ear, “You were saying?”

* * *

**FIVE DAYS LATER**

Lassiter coughed again as the dust in his dingy basement intruded his airway. He scanned it from one corner to another. It was simply a storage unit now ever since they moved into this beach house five years ago.

In a corner sat a giant stuffed bear in a plastic wrapper. Juliet got it for them as a wedding gift. Shawn liked it so much that he squeezed it into their bedroom, even talked to it in his sleep. Until one day, after tripping over its elephant-sized leg, Lassiter decided he had had it enough. The bear took up almost half of the space and he could feel its eyes on him as they conducted adult businesses. So he squeezed it through doors, dragged it down the stairs, through the hallway, then threw it into the basement.

When Shawn got back from the Psych office, he had a nervous breakdown and tried to haul the bear back to the bedroom. But Lassiter forbade it with his foot down.

Getting the wind from Gus, Juliet scolded Lassiter for two days straight and threatened to buy ten more bears to fill up his house, which Shawn thanked her for but declined.

As Lassiter made eye contact with it today, a pang of guilt knocked his inside over. It happened every time he came down here. He had long wanted to return it to Shawn but couldn’t muster up the courage. He had come to realize he could be the childish one in this relationship once in a while.

“What are you doing here?”

Startled, Lassiter snapped around and almost lost his balance.

“Ow,” Shawn exclaimed, hissing.

“Do you have to say that every time you see my nose?” Lassiter touched his rigid nose splint self-consciously.

“Sorry. Not gonna do that again,” Shawn apologized. “But just let me get it all out of my system first—ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. Okay, I’m done.”

“Do you think—”

“Ow,” Shawn cut him off.

Lassiter shot him a glare then continued, “Do you think your dad has straightened it for me?” His only purpose was to arouse guilt in his attacker’s son.

“I like it being crooked.”

“You should’ve informed him _before_ he forced the rhinoplasty on me. He was definitely not clued in.”

“I will,” Shawn promised, his tone not lacking seriousness. “But if I go talk to him now, I can’t guarantee he wouldn’t take the embarrassment of what he did and turn it into anger then thrash you again.”

“Truth be told, I don’t blame the guy. It’s a father’s sworn duty to protect his child.”

Shawn rolled his eyes, but Lassiter didn’t see it. He was busying himself with the boxes stacked on the floor. What he couldn’t avoid was Shawn’s scrutinizing gaze at his back.

“You’d make a great dad,” Shawn said.

“I would.” He tried to sound neutral, not laden his words with blame. “We should decide which to toss out,” Lassiter supplied without any warning, pointing at the boxes. “The basement will get crammed up more and more. Before we know it, we’ll be like those grandma hoarders.”

Shawn anxiously looked over to his bear.

It was like Lassiter could read his mind. “Don’t worry. Your bear is safe. It can stay with us.”

“ _Our_ bear,” Shawn corrected. “Why are you doing this all of a sudden?”

 _Because you won’t raise a child with me? Because I’ve lost purpose in my life?_ “Because I want a rumpus room. I’ve always wanted one.”

“A rumpus room,” Shawn repeated slowly as if trying to get another taste out of these words.

Lassiter took long strides to the wall on the east side. “We’ll put a whine cooler here. A bar there.” He pointed to a place not far away from him. Then he walked swiftly to the opposite side. “A gun wall here. Finally, a gun wall…Oh! Bulletproof glass! Our guests will love it.”

“Or terrified. What guests are you talking about? We never have guests.”

Lassiter was getting too frenzied. He didn’t hear Shawn. “Maybe I can even get a permit to do target practice here. I have to pad all the walls.” He was mumbling to himself.

“So basically you want a gun room,” Shawn surmised.

“We can buy a foosball table for you and put it in the center.”

“I don’t know how Gus would feel about playing foosball in a room that smells like gun powder.”

“What’s your opinion on table tennis? I think I would love it, although I’ve never tried it.”

Shawn smiled drily as Lassiter rolled out the blueprint with his words and boyish jerks of his arms. He smacked his lips and shrugged with a false indifference to compensate for what he was going to say. “Just curious, Lassie, how much is this fabulous rumpus room gonna cost us?”

“Since when do you care about money?” Here was Shawn sounding like a responsible adult finally but his first attempt was to try and sabotage another one of his dreams.

“I don’t know. Twenty thousand? Thirty?”

“That’s a bit much, don’t you think?”

“I’m the chief now. My salary’s higher. I have savings. So don’t worry about that, all right?”

Shawn recognized the condescending and patronizing tone that said _I know better than you, so shut it_. But he wouldn’t shut it. Not this time.

“We can use this money for a better cause.”

“I’m all ears.” Lassiter crossed his arms. “What’s your ‘better cause?’ Invest it in a corner candy store?”

“College, car, bicycle, diapers, formula, crib, and—wait for it—toys.”

It baffled Shawn how those obvious examples didn’t tip Lassiter off immediately what he was actually proposing. Perhaps he should have done it with whisper challenge.

“You want to go to college? Seriously, Shawn, at this age? You don’t need a degree to do your job, so why bother? It’d be easier to just build a time machine.”

Was he playing dumb or the notion of the faraway future had totally slipped away from his mind because he thought I had nipped the bud? Shawn thought, watching Lassiter flailing his limbs and defying Shawn’s list one item by another.

“And car? I’ve been telling you you need a car for years. You’re the one always saying you’d rather trouble all those around you than parking and keeping maintenance of a car. Even a teenager is more—” Lassiter stopped himself.

_There you go. Let it sink in, Lassie._

As if a trap door had opened under his feet, Lassiter’s annoyed look turned into a stupefied one. He took a step toward Shawn, standing in front of him toe to toe.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Lassiter asked quietly, like whispering a gossip that had no basis of fact.

“Yes. Adopting a puppy will add huge benefits to your mental health.”

For a second there, which felt longer than it actually was, petrifying to both of them, Lassiter seemed to have lost his most important social skill—telling apart Shawn’s jokes with non-jokes. The reality behind his statement/possible joke was too gratifying with a tinge of wonderment to believe in.

“I thought you didn’t want to have a kid with me anymore,” Lassiter said, suppressing his boiling and bursting emotions, “you know, after that night.”

“Never said that.”

“Kay.”

“Kay.”

As Shawn searched Lassiter’s face for apprehension in the silent interlude, Lassiter dumped the weight on his heart which was dampening his mood and keeping it from getting overblown with exhilaration. “Are you only doing this for me?”

“Since when do I come off as a selfless person? The noblest Shawn Spencer strikes again.”

Lassiter’s hands found their way inside his pockets and pinched his thighs, trying to sober up and not to show that in this dingy basement of theirs, Shawn’s new epiphany had possibly given him a second life. Grinding gravel on the concrete floor with the heel of his shoes, Lassiter asked, sounding casual to his own ears, “So what brings this 180 turn of attitude?”

“It’d be nuts to do this only for you. But for starters, I like you _a lot_.” Shawn grinned uninhibitedly seeing the corner of Lassiter’s mouth twitched.

Lassiter nodded, not interrupting the rare revelation that was about to come out of his husband.

“And I want to be a father too. Just as much as you, believe it or not, although I’ll never have my kid calling me Dad. You’ll be Dad. I’ll be Papa.”

Lassiter nodded again.

“Look, I get to play with a kid all day long and no one will say anything other than ‘Well done.’ I get to be a kid all over again…But sometimes I’m just too afraid of the time we won’t be throwing balls, playing hide-and-seek, drinking a kiwi-flavored smoothie along with a pineapple flavored one.”

“It’s not just you who’s afraid,” Lassiter interjected with an admission of his own.

“I just don’t want to mess up, Lassie.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to be another Henry.”

“That’s not fair. He came all the way to give me a rhinoplasty.”

“You don’t want to contradict me on this,” Shawn warned, never a fan when Lassiter defended his father, despite the fact it weirdly brought a warm stream to his heart. Maybe he just enjoyed feigning this opposition, always playing the part of a wronged son. “In high school, he almost arrested my football coach just because I accidentally joked I was flirting with him.”

To Lassiter, that sounded like bragging no matter how many layers of whining it was wrapped in. _At least your dad’s here._ He didn’t voice his opinion.

“At least your dad’s here.” Or perhaps he was fed up with the show-off.

“Even if bad parenting runs in my family,” Shawn delivered the topic back on track, “I know without a doubt you’d be there to help me. You’re the Monica to my Chandler. You’re already a mother-father who’s just short of a baby.”

There was no time than this moment Lassiter was more grateful that every now and then he would find Shawn watching _Friends_ reruns with Gus. He thought perhaps he should be humble, to dial it down and compliment Shawn in return, but that would seem ingenuous as it would be coming from a place of mild doubt toward the other man and pride in himself boosted by that very man’s praise, and Shawn would see right through it.

He knew Lassiter preferred being the better one between them, whether it be beating him at work or outperforming him in bed. Though the results varied, weren’t always, actually he believed were seldom on Lassiter’s side, he understood the need, one colossal ego to another. So unless Lassiter indeed believed in Shawn’s ability to raise a kid, not starve it, lose it, drop it, or over-feed it, spoil it, it didn’t matter he said it back or not.

There might have been another reason Lassiter was remaining silent—he didn’t want to say the wrong thing to sway Shawn’s decision that tends to be flimsy.

“So I’ve been digging around…” Shawn reached into his back pocket. He had a stack of crumpled brochures in his palm. “Gus helped. A lot. We should make him the godfather for this. You know what? That’s my only request if we’re gonna do this.”

Lassiter leafed through the brochures Shawn handed to him. On every cover, babies were smiling at him, newborns, toddlers, even teens, their faces all advertisement-level beautiful, all entrancing. Head bowed down, he kept staring, but not taking in a word, only to hide the warm tears welled up in his eyes. It was a wonder to himself he still thought he could hide anything from Shawn.

He mounted his hand on Lassiter’s, which stopped their motion but not their fine tremor. It was no mystery anymore how agonized Lassiter must have felt in the last five days. So even before the baby came into their lives, Shawn had been a little jealous of, slightly threatened by, and a bit defeated because of it, which was the reason he grew more fond of the man before him—he knew that from the day when Lassiter met the baby forward, he would take a back seat in his life. He would be okay with that, wouldn’t he? His heart felt hollower than ever.

“I’ll take it you like my proposal?” Shawn said.

“Very much,” Lassiter said, his voice raw. Reaching around, he put brochures back into Shawn’s back pocket.

It was like Lassiter was his magnet, he couldn’t be in a standstill when he came close, no matter how blazing it was or icy. He wrapped his arms around him, breathed in the musty air in the basement that would remain a basement for a long time.

Lassiter did the same.

Two men, with their face hidden from one another, with the temperature between their embrace growing warmer and warmer, each of their hearts were occupied by different things. Lassiter had detached himself from reality and lived in a place where his kid’s first day of school was tomorrow. Meanwhile, Shawn was counting the scant days when his husband could still belong to him and only him.

“Hey, baby daddy?” Shawn said in a breathy voice.

“Yes, baby papa?”

“You’re not doing this alone either. I’ll be there.”

Lassiter turned his head, kissed Shawn’s ear, his tears dripping into its meandering grooves. “I know.”

“Be brave, Lassie. And good luck.”


End file.
